She As A Nun
by FlatEarth2020
Summary: Never marked by the Outsider, she watched her throne taken from her. A powerless Emily goes into hiding as a nun, but not without regret.


**She As A Nun**

* * *

With the light of the candle almost going out, she wrote her letter quietly to her dear father. Her pen scratched the paper, ink dripping as her hand trembled. From the nerves, she knocked the candle over with her elbow and sighed as wax rolled onto her letter, her careful words dissipating with the light.

She sighed softly. He wouldn't have approved of her choice anyway. She crumpled up the paper and threw it in the wastebasket, going to lay down on her bed. It was made of straw but she liked it anyway. She put the blanket over her and went to sleep.

She dreamed of her bloody childhood.

When she finally awoke, it was to the sound of the bell. Her dorm-sisters had long stirred before her. She put on fresh robes and when she got to the end of the hall, she was smacked on the wrist, by her senior. An elderly woman who wore her robe immaculately.

"Ow," She said softly. The women grimaced with her thin lips. "Don't speak.' She grabbed her hand, turning it over. "These are the hands of a girl who has never scrubbed a floor in her life. They are far too nice, and that is what you will be doing today. But first, we shall pray,"

She bowed her head in a nod. She was a nun, this was the fate she had consigned herself to.

She followed the old woman across the hall, through the court yard and its crisp air, and then finally into the church. The tall stain-glass windows colorful and reflecting the peaceful light; a beauty displaying no indication or the horrors that had once been, or would now be. She supposed it was her job to hold the memory.

Even if it hadn't truly faded, and had instead jumped to somewhere else. A different continent now swamped in its darkness.

She stepped through it's polished wooden doors and knelt softly before the cross, her heavy robes resting on the cold tile of the floor. She brought her hands together, speaking softly but Articulately in her prayer to God.

Her heart and loyalty was with another being though.

The senior nun knelt beside her and also prayed. When they had finished they rose slowly. She clutched her rosary as the senior nun led her to the closet and got a bucket and broom. She gripped her arm and trust the bucket in her finely manicured fingers, before leading her to the water pump across the courtyard.

"Get to it, Emily." The old woman ordered.

She nodded her head and pumped water into the bucket. She got the broom and carried it with her to hallway and started mopping. She sighed, but continued patiently. She needed to stay consistent in her resolve. She had chosen this.

She wasn't fit to be empress. That was proven the moment she was overthrown. There was little left for her to do but hide.

She lifted the mop and swiped it across the floor. She stuck it in crevices, in the indents in the tile, even the edge of the walls. She wanted to remain there a long time, away from the new harshness that awaited her. A harshness in a different way.

But the hardest part was pretending to worship a god she didn't believe in. The prayers mouthed on her lips at night were to a much darker entity. The one that had given her father the abilities he needed to save her, and her kingdom.

She had a shrine to him hidden in an old building that took quite a hike in the surrounding mountains to get to. She'd sneak out during the night. It was a risk that could kill her, but she refused to give it up.

But even ash she knelt beneath it, the question of why he'd never marked her, and the feeling of betrayal in her heart from it, would never truly leave her. She'd wanted to be like her father from her earliest memories of him.

She'd grown up with certainty the Outsider one day would. She was an empress after all, and had once dreamed of the void. After too much wine, her father sometimes talked about him, and what he had done in result of the black magic he had acquired.

He'd never felt the same about the Outsider as she though. His loyalty was to no God, but to her, and her mother.

When she'd thoroughly finished the floors she wrung the mop and put it beside the door to dry, dumping out the bucket. She leaned against the wall with a sigh, before walking to the kitchen to get breakfast.

Most of the nuns had already eaten, but there was still bean paste in the pot on the stove. She took a bowl and sat down at the table to eat it quietly. She spooned a scoop of it. It was plain compared to the food she'd had her whole life. She didn't enjoy the tastelessness of it. A fly buzzed in the room, turning her stomach slightly. She imagined it landing in the bean paste and laying eggs.

She was no longer an empress it was just something she had to get used to.

When she'd finished her bowl, she set it on top of the stack of empty dishes and picked it up, carrying it with a considerable lack of precision to the courtyard. She set it down beside the pump. She then went back and retrieved the bucket.

What she saw when she returned to the pump though, made her drop it, the bucket banging against the stone tile and rolling a bit.

A cloaked man with a metal mask. The mask she had grown to love, as she already loved the one under it. Her heart froze, and her breath caught in her throat. Shame deeper than shed ever felt washed over her.

The man took a step forward, boots worn and covered in mud. He'd been busy.

Corvo, her father.

"Emily," he said softly.

* * *

 _To be continued..._


End file.
